GPS requirement for school: SLO 9: “The narrative should address how the student 'crossed borders' - how the cultural differences impacted the study.”

While in Paris, I definitely did accustom to a few of the cultural differences and learned the local way to do things.  One thing that I found different and had to kind of adjust to was the time that people generally eat dinner.  Typically at home most people eat between 5-7, but in Paris, they tend to eat dinner a little later.  An example that portrays this is once again, Pizza 30 (where we often went for a quick dinner if we got out of class late), was closed everyday between 1 and 6 because people don't usually eat dinner until after 6.  I guess it wasn't really hard to adjust to this because we typically didn't get out of class until 6-8 anyway, but I did find that I would start getting hungry about 5-6 seeing as that is when I typically eat dinner at home.  I feel like people are up very late in Paris, which makes it easier to understand why they eat dinner later.  When I came home it was kind of weird adjusting back to eating dinner at the same time as my family did because I had gotten used to eating a little later from being in Paris for a month.  It took me a little while to get back on my normal schedule once I returned home.  One thing that I had to try to adjust to was the metro.  Taking the metro is the absolute worst, I don't know how people do it every single day of their lives.  I guess you could say taking the metro is one "cultural difference which was hard to resolve".  People pushed, shoved, ran, fell, leaned, and basically just invaded any personal space you had.  I honestly don't understand how people can be so extremely rude to other human beings.  Don't get me wrong, there were a few kind people who offered me their seat when they saw that I had crutches, but the majority of the people were just flat out rude.  At first I was just personally offended, but towards the end of the month I started to be a little pushy back to them, but not near as pushy as they were.  Overall I learned a lot on how much cultures differ and how difficult it is to adjust and accept other cultures, but I also learned how informative and amazing it is to travel and learn how other cultures work.  Although there were some tough times and things that were hard to accustom to, I wouldn't trade this experience for anything!

GPS requirement for school: SLO 10. “Show an awareness of environmental and cultural responsibility.”

I don't really know exactly how to answer one of the questions in the description, "how does my being here affect people who live here?".  I ran into a mixture of answers to this question, so I will just describe my experiences with both sides.  Some people that I met loved getting to know us Americans and talking to us as we did them, but others were just rude and wanted nothing to do with us.  The employees at Pizza 30 which I discussed in one of my previous posts, loved hanging out with us and helping us learn french and the French culture and they also loved asking us questions and getting to know the American culture as well.  The things that they found kind of odd about our culture was how little we cared about soccer and how we drank coffee.  Every single place we went to eat, hang out, anything, had the world cup soccer games on the TV and when we didn't seem to care about it they thought it was strange and asked what kind of sports are more popular in America.  We explained to them that football is one of the biggest sports here that people get really into.  On one of our last days in Paris, we were at Pizza 30 and the one guy who always chatted with us asked us about drinking coffee and gave us a free cup of espresso.  The cup was so teeny tiny and when we were discussing that, he asked us how we usually drank coffee, so we explained to him that we typically drink regular coffee with sugar and milk or some type of creamer in large servings instead of very strong espresso in very small servings.  He found this to be very interesting and I also enjoyed getting to try the espresso, which was actually delicious!  Seeing as majority of the people I encountered spoke at least some english, I think that most of them do kind of embrace aspects of the American culture and seeing as there are McDonald's pretty much within walking distance of many places it is evident that they are embraced in our culture as well.

GPS requirement for school: SLO 8: “Demonstrate the ability to collaborate effectively across cultures.”

On one of the last few days in Paris, I had the amazing opportunity to work the Henrik Vibskov fashion show, which required me to work with people from multiple different cultures.  This made the experience of working a fashion show in Paris during men's fashion week even more amazing.  I will admit trying to communicate effectively with people who don't speak english that well became difficult at times, but we worked through it and made it work!  One way that we made this work is by using a lot of hand gestures and trying to explain things in depth on both sides, which was extremely helpful.  I found that using visuals and talking with your hands is one of the most helpful things when being in a foreign country where you are constantly trying to communicate with people in different languages.  Also, one of my classmates was from Romania, so I got to learn a lot about her culture and also got to help her with her english and learning about our culture.  When we first started, she wasn't that great at speaking english, so working on class projects with her was a little difficult at first, but she got a lot better and towards the end it was so much easier to communicate with her for school work and just everyday conversations.  It was a cool feeling knowing that I helped her in little ways with learning how to effectively communicate in english and it was also interesting to ask her about her culture.  When we would ask her certain things about her culture and we found them very different from ours we would try to understand and do things the way she would so that she would not always feel like she had to adjust to our language and culture, but that we were also trying to learn and adjust to hers.  An example of this is eating habits....she said she puts ketchup on basically everything, so I tried some odd combinations of food with ketchup that she found totally normal.  Like I previously said, it is definitely challenging to work with individuals from other cultures, but if you try your hardest, you can make it something wonderful.

GPS requirement for school: SLO 5: “Demonstrate familiarity with communication styles and values of one culture other than their own.”

I learned a lot about the french communication styles.  One thing that I really noticed was how much they talk with their hands, I thought a lot of people in America (including myself) used a lot of gestures when talking, but that is nothing compared to the French.  Another thing that I thought was interesting was the fact that they are very distinctive between "good evening" and "good night".  Here for example, when I am at work and it is 6 in the evening I will often times say "have a good night" instead of "have a good evening", but when I did this in Paris (in french of course), they would correct me and tell me to say "good evening" because saying "good night" meant that you were going to go to bed.  I found this very interesting seeing as here in America, we often use these sayings interchangeably.  

GPS requirement for school-SLO 4: “Knowing that communication styles vary by culture”

The communication styles her are definitely different than they are in the US.  The biggest difference that I have noticed every single day is how little they value their personal space.  I have never been touching so many strangers at once which I know sounds weird, but there is no other way to describe it.  The metro is by far my absolute least favorite thing about Paris for oh so many reasons.  The metro is pretty much almost always packed with people literally busting out of the doors when they open, which is quite a challenge let me tell you (especially when you are on crutches).  Not only are you like literally laying on complete strangers and not to be rude, but a lot of the time they smell quite unpleasant.  The metro has so many different odors going on that it is just a space filled with bad, bad smells and sweaty people touching you.  I can't be on it for too long without needing to get out of there and be in my own personal space bubble.  After being here for a while and riding the metro every day, I really appreciate the fact that I can have all the personal space I want at home and when I need to go somewhere I can go in the privacy of my own good smelling car.

SLO 3: gps requirement for school

You know how at a restaurant or a store in America when we go to pay for our items we either put it in the little folder thing (at restaurants) or at the store we just hand the cashier our money, hand to hand?  Well that is not the case in Paris.  At the bakery we visit frequently, when I go to pay for my items there is a little glass dish laying on the counter which you are supposed to place your money in and then they put your change in that same dish instead of handing it to one another.  I did not even realize this until probably a week ago and then felt a little embarrassed that I had been doing it wrong the whole time.  These glass dishes are not just used at places such as the bakery...they are used in majority of the restaurants or cafe's as well.  I find it strange that they use them at restaurants instead of the little folder things we use in America, so it is interesting to see how many little but important differences there are culturally.

Being a tourist

Yesterday was probably my best day here!  We decided to go to the world's largest Chipotle, and the most touristy thing of all, the Eiffel Tower.  Taking the metro to Chipotle was a little challenging because we had to go to places we had never been before and get off of our first metro at another metro stop that had metro lines 8 and 9.  Once we got it all figured out we were so excited, so we got on our "layover metro" if you will, and then realized that the stop we were supposed to get off at was currently closed for some unknown reason.  No worries though, we just got off at a stop near the one we were supposed to get off on and found it from there!  After Chipotle we headed over to the Eiffel Tower!  We waited in line for quite a while and then finally got to go up in it.  We went all the way to the top and had a blast!!!  The city is so beautiful especially at night (by the time we got up there it was close to midnight) and I am starting to enjoy my time here a lot more.  Granted there definitely were and are on a daily basis still some challenges along the way like walking a lot which caused my foot to hurt and swell up today, but hey what am I gonna do?  I have had to miss out a few things here solely due to the fact that my foot is fractured, but when I do have good days, it just makes them seem like extraordinary days.  I only have 2 more weeks to be here which is a little bitter sweet, but I honestly cannot wait to be home!

The world's largest Chipotle!!! It was soo good!

We were so excited when we first saw the Eiffel Tower from afar!

The Eiffel Tower is way huger than I even expected it to be..and it is absolutely gorgeous at night!

selfies with Val on the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Definitely finding out who my friends are while I'm here..these 2 are my favorite to be with :) and to think..Katie and I never really talked to each other in class or anything before this trip and now we are like bffs.

The view from the top!

such a beautiful thing to experience at night.